


Checking for Titanium

by pensnest



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:13:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensnest/pseuds/pensnest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam needs to get Kris a Christmas gift, and his friends are no help at all.  Even the fantasy cabin in the woods isn't going to get him what he wants, because he can't ask.</p><p>Fortunately, Kris is made of sterner stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checking for Titanium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vae/gifts).



Sitting in the cramped seat of a cheap but direct flight from Vegas to Duluth, Adam fretted. Had he remembered everything? What if it was cold? What if that log fire was the only heat source in the place? Did he have enough layers? There was nothing he could do about it now, he was committed, but he could worry. If it went wrong, he had only himself to blame.

He was dressed down for this, with his hair in the old shaggy style, his least exciting jeans, and a big parka. The anonymous look. It seemed to be working—the stewardess on the flight out of LA had asked for his autograph, but on the Duluth leg, things were quiet.

It was a relief to disembark and stretch his legs. Cheap flights sucked. He'd gotten used to being comfortable. Adam claimed his luggage—how had he packed so much for such a short trip? What had he forgotten?—and staggered out.

Kris's face-splitting grin was impossible to miss, shining there at the end of the Arrivals line. Kris had already found the driver, a big, laconic guy who loaded their bags and Kris's guitar into the trunk of a heavy, anonymous sedan. Adam hoped—Adam really hoped—their destination would live up to the images on the website. People could do so much with wide-angle lenses and Photoshop. He'd booked the whole thing himself, and he'd feel exceptionally foolish if it turned out to be a shack in the woods.

*

His first thought had been something exotic, like maybe one of those fabulous Japanese silk robes, or some Australian Aboriginal art, or… but there was precious little time for shopping when you were touring, because there were concerts and there were meet and greets and interviews and appearances and after that going anywhere there were people just kinda lost its appeal. There was also the fact that Adam had bought a fabulous Japanese robe for himself, so it would be weird, like he wanted them to match, or something. Which, no.

He was going to have to think of a better Christmas gift than that.

*

Somehow it didn't feel right to do real catching up when there was a stranger in the car, so the conversation was restricted to comments about their surroundings. Adam didn't spend a lot of time in the snow, neither did Kris, so they spent most of the ride staring out at the white-coated landscape, which quickly emptied of man-made features. A bright blue sky, and blinding snow-covered hills, and a road that seemed to get narrower all the time.

"Man, I'm glad I got us a driver," Adam muttered as they turned off Pequayan Lake Road and headed into what looked very much like the middle of nowhere. There had been snowplows, at some point, but there had also been more snow. Their driver—Pete—didn't seem at all perturbed by it, but Adam and Kris exchanged more than a few nervous glances as the car made its way slowly and carefully up the narrow white track. It was a relief when it finally came to a stop, even if that meant they'd have to get out of the nice, warm atmosphere into the chilly Minnesota landscape.

By the time Adam managed to get himself around to the trunk, Pete had already carried Kris's guitar and one of the bags up to the porch and was heading back for the other luggage. Adam felt a bit of a wimp, but was nonetheless grateful for Pete's easy hefting of the last bag, and followed him and Kris to the cabin door. Pete produced a key and let them inside.

"This is nice," Kris remarked. "Oh, gosh!" He laughed. He'd seen the Christmas tree, ceiling-high and covered in red and gold baubles, right next to the huge fireplace. The room was wonderfully warm, and two large couches looked comfy and welcoming.

"Kitchen's this way," Pete said, and led them through a doorway. He showed them where the food Adam had ordered was stored, and where to find what they'd need, then took them on a quick tour of the entire cabin, depositing a bag randomly in each of the two bedrooms, and finishing up outside on the deck with an introduction to the hot tub.

Adam thanked him, tipped him generously, and watched the car crunch carefully back over the snowy track.

He went back inside. Discovering on the way that his own bag had been deposited in the slightly larger of the two bedrooms, he eventually found Kris in the kitchen making overtures towards the coffee machine.

"Alone at last!" Kris exclaimed, and leapt at Adam, who just had time to brace for impact before receiving an enthusiastic full-body hug, Allen-style. Adam hugged back, savoring every inch of contact. It had been way too long.

"So we're here why exactly?" Kris asked, smiling up at Adam with that adorable sparkle in his eyes.

Adam wanted to kiss him. "Well, you know, I just got this idea into my head, to get you a Christmas gift. And I know, Jewish, not really into the whole Christmas thing except for it being kind of a cool holiday with the gifts and all, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Except I couldn't think what to get you. I mean, what do you get the guy who has, okay, not everything, but everything he wants?"

Kris eyed Adam with what looked like alarm. "I actually meant, why are we hanging out in a cabin near some place called Barrs Lake in the back of beyond, MN, even if it does have a hot tub? I mean, a hot tub is nice, but it's, like, thirty degrees out there. There's snow on the deck. You'd have to be certifiably insane to go sit in a hot tub in weather like this."

"Uh. Yeah. We don't have to sit in the hot tub." It had seemed like a really good idea when he made the booking, but he hadn't realized how cold it would be.

"The cabin looks good, though, right?" he said, a little anxiously.

"It looks great. Don't worry! Seriously. This is great. I'm gonna take another look in the kitchen."

*

It was amazing how unhelpful people could be when you really needed some advice. Monte had gotten all technical about guitars, but Adam figured, if Kris wanted new guitar stuff, he probably just went out and bought it, and even if he didn't, Adam had no clue what Kris already had, and getting people something really specific like that only worked if you actually got it right. Longineu put up his hands defensively and said he didn't even know the guy and ask someone else. LP was smart that way. Tommy said nobody ever had too much beer, and why not have a couple cases delivered, which was just sad. Adam might not be able to think of anything, yet, but he could definitely do better than beer. Cam, who was a jewel beyond price, said how about a leather jacket, and for a while Adam thought that would work, until he remembered Kris already owned a leather jacket. It had been a present from his wife.

*

"I know it's a bit late for Christmas," Adam said, wandering into the kitchen in Kris's wake, "but I guessed you'd want to spend the actual day with your family."

"Not too late," Kris said, grinning. "Twelve days of Christmas, we're still good."

"Oh. Okay, then." Adam had never figured out what that meant, except he had an idea there were a lot of birds involved and he probably didn't want to know. "So. Um. Do you want to eat?"

"Not yet. First, we have to build a snowman," Kris announced. "While it's still light."

"We do?"

"Absolutely. It's, like, our moral duty to build snowmen when there's this much snow, just for us."

"Okay, then. So…"

"I guess we start with a big pile of snow."

The first snowman didn't have a lot of character, until Adam foraged for pine twigs to give it a spiky haircut. "Really, it needs a snow guitar," he said, critically, and began to shape a smaller mound of snow into something passably guitar-like. Kris attempted to carve a plaid pattern into the snowman's torso with his fingers, then gave up and donated a scarf instead.

"Now we have to build an Adam," Kris declared. "We need a bigger pile." Kris hollowed a big mouth-hole that took nearly a quarter out of the second snowman's head, and declared that it was singing, then added extra on top because, he claimed, it had to have big hair.

"That's nothing like me!" Adam said, faking indignation, and hurried inside, stamping the snow off his boots, to fetch a couple of necklaces to glamorize the singing snowman. It wasn't much, but he was not going to sacrifice any of his actual clothes—not that he'd brought anything flashy on this trip. He emerged back into the snow to discover that 'his' snowman now sported an enormous bulge at the front, and Kris was looking too innocent to live. Retribution was called for, so he roared and gave chase.

Kris dodged well even when hampered by snow, and he was remarkably capable with a snowball for someone who grew up in Arkansas, but Adam got him eventually. He tackled Kris flat, then straddled him and shoved snow down Kris's collar until he squealed for mercy and promised to do anything Adam wanted. Then he got up, because sitting on your best straight friend's groin was just a bad idea. Even if Kris didn't seem to mind.

*

"He's your friend," Danielle said. "Doesn't that mean you're supposed to know him well enough to figure out what he'd like?"

"I hate you," Adam said. This whole thing was becoming a nightmare. Christmas was getting closer, and Adam was getting more and more disoriented as the tour went on, and maybe calling her at what turned out to be four in the morning, not four in the afternoon, had been a mistake, but she could have been a bit more help. Seriously.

*

"See, the thing about really good gifts," Adam explained as they ate the quite magnificent chicken pot pies they'd found, with heating instructions, in the refrigerator, "the thing about really good gifts is, they have to be about both of you, the person getting the gift and the person giving it, otherwise they're just, just not really good gifts." It was a self-evident truth. If you were a leather-and-spikes kind of a person, you couldn't give someone a—a plaid shirt, because that was just ridiculous, but if you were a plaid shirt person, you couldn't give someone leather-and-spikes, either. Because. You had to find something that worked for both of you.

"And it had to be a really good gift," Kris said, fondly and gently sarcastic. His cheeks were still pink, maybe from playing in the snow, maybe from the warmth of the wood fire. He looked edible.

"Of course!" Adam didn't think he needed to explain. "Which is why I thought this would work. That's why I asked them to do a Christmas tree," he added. "Even though it's late. Besides, it's pretty! Shall we go sit by the fire?"

"It is pretty," Kris admitted, looking over at the tree. "The Christmas tree is a nice touch."

Adam smiled. "They did a great job with it."

"They sure did. But you know, it isn't quite a real Christmas tree."

"It isn't?"

"It's too perfect," Kris said. "A real tree has mismatched stuff on it, and a bunch of scruffy ornaments from years ago."

"It does?"

"Yeah." Kris lay back, draping himself over the couch cushions for all the world as though he was just waiting for somebody to pounce on him and tear off all his clothes. Wishful thinking. "My parents kept every stupid tree ornament Daniel and me made since we were in Kindergarten. Plus there's others we bought as jokes or as souvenirs from weird places, some of them are seriously ugly, but they all go on—and no cheating hiding them around the back. With a proper tree you can find memories of all the other Christmases. That's why decorating the tree is a thing, you know?"

"Oh," said Adam. He hadn't known about any of that stuff. He said so.

"It's okay. You aren't supposed to. And you don't know about gifts under the tree, either. Me and Daniel always used to sneak in on Christmas morning and try to guess what our presents were. Like, poke them to see if they were soft, and lift them up to see if they were heavy, and shake them to see if they rattled."

"Neil does that with birthday gifts. It drives me crazy. I just rip the wrappings off."

"At Christmas, we have to wait until everyone's there, and take turns, and Mom writes everything down. It's tough, man." Kris nodded, mournfully. "But, hey! This year I get a bonus tree… it's so cool that you thought of it. It's nice."

"Really? You're not just saying that?"

Kris looked at him reproachfully. "Would I do that?"

"Um. No?"

"No. So. Here we are. Secluded cabin, roaring fire, cellphones turned off. We're all alone together." He grinned. "What do we do now?"

"You," said Adam, "go get your guitar. I thought maybe we could work on a song together."

Kris blinked at him, as though Adam's perfectly reasonable—he hoped—suggestion was taking a long time to register. "Guitar. Song. Right." Adam watched wistfully as Kris loped out of the room, but had his 'best friend, enthusiastic musician' face on by the time Kris returned with his guitar and a fistful of paper.

It took them a while to get started, because it turned out that Kris liked to have some ideas for the lyric before he could get anything approaching a melody, whereas Adam needed to hear the music first and figure out what kind of words would fit to it. After a while, they got a bit of momentum going, stalled, bickered for a half hour about a theme, and then suddenly found everything had settled into a really good groove. By two thirty in the morning they had something that really felt like it could be special, and Kris was yawning more than he was talking.

"Bed," Adam stated.

"Sorry. 'm too tired to go to bed," Kris muttered. He was drooping into the couch.

Adam quelled the impulse to pick him up and carry him to the bedroom. Too Scarlett O'Hara, and pretending was pointless anyway. He stood, held out an arm for Kris's hand, and hauled him to his feet. "Sleep well," he said, giving Kris a gentle shove through the bedroom doorway.

"If I don't, can I sleep in your bed?"

"You can swap! Do you want to swap? I really don't mind." Adam hadn't meant to choose the nicer bedroom. But Kris was shaking his head.

"Night, Adam."

*

He was pretty desperate when he got back home at long last, otherwise he'd never have asked Brad, who was famously erratic about gifts.

"Something… unique. Hmm." Brad posed as "adorably pensive" with a finger to his lips, his eyes opened wide and his gaze ceilingwards. Adam distrusted that look. "I have the perfect thing! A crocheted dildo pouch. I saw them on Etsy. Pale blue, _very_ tasteful. What, you don't think he'd like—no, you're right, he probably doesn't have a dildo. Perhaps you could give—no, no, inappropriate, obviously. Then go with the classics, honey, get him a penis warmer." Brad batted his eyelashes. "You could add sequins, to remind him of you."

Adam glared. Brad flitted off to irritate someone else.

*

Adam looked forlornly at the closed door for a moment, then got himself into his own room and into bed. He lay there in the dark, warm and comfortable and restless. This was a good Christmas gift, they were having a good time, hanging together, making jokes and making music, it was enough. It was great.

Except for now, because he couldn't sleep for thinking of Kris, so close and so completely unavailable. And Adam wanted… wanted more than hugs, wanted to haul Kris into his arms and kiss him breathless, wanted to press him into the wall and rub their cocks together through their jeans, wanted to strip Kris naked and run his hands over every inch of him. Wanted to suck him till he screamed and fuck him till he begged, and watch his adorable face as he came. He wanted to see Kris's mouth stretched around his cock, or Kris lying back with his hands behind his knees, holding himself open and ready. To hold him down and do sweet and dirty things to him, fingers and tongue everywhere and Kris wriggling, ecstatic and helpless. Wanted to see Kris lick Adam's come from his cheeks, from Adam's hand. Kris bent over the kitchen counter or the big leather couch, Kris on his knees in front of the fireplace, he wanted, he wanted, oh, he wanted… oh….

And he couldn't have.

Adam slid out of bed and went into the bathroom to clean up. He had to stop thinking like this. Kris was straight, Kris was married, and Kris was his friend, and that was enough. It had to be.

*

In the end he did the sensible thing. He called Katy.

*

Adam was used to Kris's pre-coffee zombie state and didn't think anything of it when a blank-faced bedheaded creature in Donald Duck boxers shambled past him towards the kitchen counter. He checked Twitter as he ate his breakfast, and allowed Kris time and space to redevelop sentience.

Twenty minutes later he looked up and realized he was alone in the kitchen. Alone in the house, it turned out. There was no sign of Kris anywhere, no shower running… he even checked the hot tub, but no, it was not occupied. But there in the clean, new snow were footprints leading down off the deck and away past yesterday's jaunty snowmen towards the trees.

Worried, Adam debated with himself for a few minutes, but eventually decided he'd better follow, however cold it was, so he put on an extra pair of socks, pulled the huge parka over his lounging-about-the-house clothes, struggled into his boots and gloves, and set off. It seemed kinda weird that Kris had just disappeared without even telling him, and he felt oddly queasy, wondering if there was something wrong and had he made a big mistake bringing Kris here into a white wilderness after all.

In a ridiculous anticlimax he met Kris not five minutes later, bright eyed and pink-cheeked under his woolly hat.

"Just wanted some fresh air," Kris explained. "Look, I promised I'd call Katy, you don't mind, do you?"

"You didn't need to go off into the woods to call your wife."

"No, no, I didn't—just wanted to, um. Think about some stuff. My cellphone's in my bedroom."  


Kris went into his room, and Adam divested himself of the various extra layers and lay down on his own bed. He wondered whether to call someone, but there wasn't anybody he wanted to speak to right now so he played Angry Birds instead. It wasn't quite enough, though, to distract him from the niggling feeling that there was something… something felt just a little bit off, like he'd missed a part of the conversation.

Which was ridiculous, because this whole cabin-in-the-woods thing was going great. The songwriting was working out incredibly well. It was kinda unexpected, that after all that talk about the kind of thing they wanted to do they'd ended up writing about sex— _aren't all songs really about sex_ , Kris had said, _or is that only jazz?_ —and it was going to sound amazing when Adam had a full-scale production worked up around it. It was also going to sound amazing when Kris sang it huskily with just his acoustic guitar for company. Kris's voice was perfect for singing about sex, Adam thought.

There was a knock on his door. "Uh. She wants to speak to you," Kris said, and gave him a fleeting smile. Adam took the phone, surprised.

"Hey, Katy," he said.

"What are you doing to my husband?"

"What? Nothing, I swear! We're just spending some time together, we actually wrote a song last night, it's really good—"

"Kris told me. So you took him away to a romantic, secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere, and you didn't actually want him in your bed?"

"What? No! I mean—Katy, seriously, I would never, I would never do that to you, or Kris. I know what you guys have, I'm not going to—I swear, I would never do anything."

Katy sighed. "You still think of us as those cute little kids in matching aprons, don't you."

"I—uh." What was he supposed to say to that? They _were_ cute kids.

"Listen, Adam. You know better. You know Kris isn't just the guy who wears plaid, plays guitar and sings lopsided, you know he's more than that. Give him—give us both some credit for knowing who we are and what we want."

"Of course I know, but I don't think we're on the same page here. I mean, I know he's not the cheating kind."

"Who said anything about cheating? It's not like that, Adam, it's really not. I've known Kris is bisexual since we were in high school. We have a deal. And you know Kris has the biggest heart in the world, do you really think he can't have love enough for more than one person? It was never a thing before because the guys he liked were always straight and they never noticed. Now, there's you."

"Uh…" Adam's brain was going to need a reboot.

"So stop being such a cocktease and get in there and fuck my husband already," she said, and if anyone had ever said anything that astounded Adam more, he couldn't remember what it was.

"Oh, Adam?" Katy added, "Merry Christmas."

Adam stared at the phone in disbelief.

After a moment, his brain started working again and he thought about what Katy had said, and he thought about Kris, about Kris's wicked sense of humor, about the way Kris always, always picked up on double meanings first, about the way Kris was totally cool with all those Kradam-loving fans online. And about Kris standing on stage with just his guitar, no costume, no carefully orchestrated horn section, just Kris singing 'Heartless' and blowing everyone else right out of the competition. Adam had thought at the time, it took balls of stee—no, of _titanium_ , to go out there like that, like he was sticking a great big finger up in Simon's face, except of course Kris would never be so ungracious. Of course there was more to Kris than what other people mostly saw.

But.

He.

What?

Had he really missed, had Katy really meant, when she'd said to him, _what he'd really like for Christmas is you_ , had she _really_ meant…? Because he'd thought she meant spending time together, and it had seemed like the perfect answer, something that'd make them both happy, but if Kris really wanted him, then why hadn't he said so? Or, had he?

Adam thought about it. _Alone at last_. A snowman with a Glambulge. _What do we do now?_ A song about sex.

Then he got himself across the hallway to Kris's room and knocked on the door.

There was a pause, just long enough for him to think, no, I'm insane, this is crazy, I'm totally out of line here, before Kris called, "Come in."

And when he opened the door, there was Kris lying on the bed. Lying naked on the bed. Lying naked on the bed, and holy fuck, holy _fuck_ , legs spread and a dildo, purple and glistening with lube, already half inside him. Adam watched in utter astonishment as Kris lifted his hips and pushed the thing deeper. And groaned.

"Oh. Fuck. Me," Adam said, stunned.

"Well, sure," Kris said in a slow drawl, "but it's not exactly what I had in mind."

Adam teleported—there was no other explanation—to the bed. He settled one hand on the smooth plane of Kris's stomach, a careful inch away from his erection. "Apparently, I'm your Christmas present," he said.

"Mmm. Do I get to unwrap you now?" Kris said, and slid his hand up Adam's thigh to settle it over Adam's very much awake cock, already straining at his jeans. "Or should I guess?"

"You can unwrap me later," Adam promised. "Right now I'm going to fuck you until you forget how to breathe. Uh. If you brought condoms."

"Of course I brought condoms," Kris said. "You know what, I think I should unwrap you just a little bit." He was very careful with Adam's zipper. "Oh, man. Be gentle with me."

"Absolutely not," said Adam.

Kris grinned. "Even better," he said, and opened his arms wide.

*

Kris Allen, who said "gosh" unironically in everyday life, turned out to have a deliciously filthy mouth and to be perfectly, unselfconsciously slutty in bed. He was eager for everything: face-to-face with Adam fully dressed; with his wrists captured above his head while Adam explored his body and turned him over for rimming and jerked him off and spilled his come across Kris's back; kneeling on Adam's lap keening and pleading while Adam fucked him slowly and teased his nipples and bit his neck. Adam had high hopes of the kitchen counter and the couch and in front of the fireplace, too, but those would have to wait, because right now he was utterly spent.

He could manage to talk, though. "So, Kris. A purple dildo?"

"It reminded me of you," Kris said.

"Oh, I am gonna spank you!"

"You don't have the strength right now."

"That is true." It was time to eat, really, Adam was starving, and as soon as he could manage to get out of bed… "But I meant, you—the sight of you, with the dildo inside you, I—that was incredibly brave of you."

Kris shifted. "I talked with Katy. We agreed you needed, um, convincing, and that seemed like the best way. Something unmistakable. I mean, I thought we were gonna do this last night, and then you just wanted us to write a song together."

"Yeah." Adam grinned at him. "It's a good song, though. My unconscious desires seeping through into the lyrics."

"If we wrote it now instead," Kris said, thoughtfully, "it'd be—you know what, I'm feeling the inspiration. I should get my guitar." He didn't move. "I have a great title. It's called, _You totally wore me out with your giant cock_."

"Not radio-friendly," Adam said at once, and they giggled like three-year-olds.

Once he'd managed to stop laughing, Adam had a thought, and sent his hand investigating. Not a sexy exploration, just curious, testing, weighing Kris's balls carefully, comparing them.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Checking for titanium."

"O-kay." Kris paused. "If you find any, let me know. That stuff is valuable."

*

Pleasantly refreshed after a very hearty meal of beef so tender it could be eaten with a spoon—whoever had cooked this stuff deserved a huge tip—Adam's thoughts began to turn to what he might do with Kris once dinner had settled.

"You know what? We should try the hot tub," Kris announced.

"I thought you said that'd be a crazy thing to do."

"Sure, but there's nothing wrong with crazy. Five minutes?"

So Adam made himself a long, complicated drink, grabbed a beer for Kris, and wandered onto the deck. Damn, it was cold out here! It was so warm inside, he hadn't even put on a sweater. There were a few flakes drifting from the darkening sky, more a reminder than a threat, but there was Kris grinning at him, submerged to the neck in enticingly bubbling hot water. Adam put the drinks down and eased himself out of his jeans and T-shirt, and got himself into the, oh, blissfully hot tub.

"This is amazing," he observed after a few minutes. His nose was probably cold, but the rest of him was too warm to care. "Not such a bad idea after all."

"This whole thing—Adam, I don't think I ever had a better Christmas present," Kris said, almost shyly.

"Just what you always wanted?"

"Pretty much."

Adam surged towards him for a kiss, and they made out lazily for a while

"We should go back inside," he said. "They won't want jizz in the water."

Kris's grin was full to the brim with mischief. "I think one of us miscalculated," he said, and hoisted himself right out of the tub. He pulled on one of the fluffy white toweling robes that had been supplied with the cabin, and scurried through the doorway. "Last one out closes the tub!" drifted behind him.

Adam stared in dismay. He had no towel, and no chance of getting his jeans on while he was wet. The few yards to the door seemed like miles. He was going to freeze his balls off.

He whimpered.

Then he smiled.

Kris would just have to warm him up.


End file.
